Way More Packaged Than Fresh

Not suprising, I guess, but disturbing: last week a New York Times article noted that Americans eat 31 % more packaged food than fresh food. Shockingly too [not], we consume more packaged food per person than people just about anywhere else.

This means two big problems: First, of course, all that packaged food means a crazy amount of packaging. Outside, probably a box. Maybe even a layer of shrink-wrappingoutside the box. Inside, a plastic container, most likely itself wrapped inside another plastic bag. And the whole thing probably ready to be microwaved. Mmmmmmmm, leached plastic.

A second concern, of course, is that the contents of that packaged "food" itself tends to be more plastic than organic. Sure, you can buy Amy's Kitchen and Cascadian Farms, but odds are what we are really eating is more along the lines of the Totino's "pizza rolls" that we popped in the oven for lunch last week, which feature delicious ingredients like Calcium Chloride, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Modified Cornstarch and Methylcellulose.

If you get the pepperoni ones (we resisited), you get a bonus dose of Titanium Dioxide, included for "color."

Alarmingly, I saw this on the FAQ section of Pillsbury's website:

Q: I accidentally let my pizza snacks thaw. Can I still eat them?
A: We do not recommend using any product that has been thawed at room temperature. If the pizza snacks have thawed in a refrigerator, you should refreeze them immediately and cook within 24 hours. However, the quality of the pizza snacks may be affected.

Ok, putting aside the question of who is this fictional "Totino" baking -- nay, assembling, these pizza rolls, HOW CREEPY IS IT that Pillsbury warns you against eating their food if it has thawed? Also, notice that they don't even bother to call it "food" -- they tell you not to "use" their "product."

Forgo your pizza rolls, America! Eat Fresh!

Garbagebergs

I am afraid that soon, instead of icebergs, we will have garbagebergs.

The New York Times ran an article today about how the Pacific Ocean is simply filling up with all the plastic bits of things that you and I throw away. And it's not just that we are "papering" our oceans with tons of plastic, but the floating plastic happily absorbs wildly toxic chemicals:

"PCBs, DDT and other toxic chemicals cannot dissolve in water, but the plastic absorbs them like a sponge. Fish that feed on plankton ingest the tiny plastic particles."

So then the toxic plastic dissolves into a trillion sparkly little pieces that get eaten by fish, who get eaten by other fish, who get eaten by . . . us. Instead of including a picture of the spotted gray trigger fish that just avoided a certain fate as a result of all this floating plastic, the Times should have included a picture of the children whose traumatic legacy our convenience-based lifestyles are ensuring.

The Opposite of Plastic

Last weekend we went to the fabulous Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, where we got to see an alpaca and llama parade, and where these ladies were spinning fiber roving into woolen yarn, and warping and wefting their way into gorgeous textiles.  It was our third annual trip to the festival, and as always, I am so impressed by the way the people there know how to take a bag of curly, freshly shorn fleece and literally spin it into a soft and fabulous sweater.  It's like magic.  Anyway, I left with a bag of thick lopi yarn, spun in a traditional Icelandic fashion, which I can't wait to work into something cool.  We left without buying an alpaca farm, or even a spinning wheel or loom, but there's always next year!

The Challenge

So there haven't been very many August entries -- partly because, overnight, New York became a sweltering swamp too hot for any activity.  But also because finding ways to work around plastic has turned out to be hugely time-consuming.  Mostly, it's in the way we cook and eat:  plastic affords alot of shortcuts that you wouldn't think of until they're not there.

Like ... take a simple pasta dinner.  I prefer to get the pasta from the excellent array of bulk bins at Integral Yoga on West 13th street, but often "splurge" on the boxed kind, removing the tiny plastic window before recycling the box.  Then, you'd like some cheese on that?  Parmesan options at our three nearest grocery stores are no good:  either a shrink-wrapped block (out) or a square plastic tub of pre-grated cheese (out).  So we head 30 blocks south to Zabar's, where it's the same disappointing story, but we discover delicious Italian Pavia as a substitute. We carry home our victorious slice of cheese wrapped in paper, but have to use it quickly, because without plastic wrap, it dries out almost overnight.   Lesson:  use the pre-summer small box of saran wrap sparingly and wisely, enforcing a wipe-it-off, dry-it and re-use-it rule.

What else.  Thirsty?  We have each drunk tons of plain water this summer, eschewing non-plastic-container drinks and being reluctant to constantly pour milk or orange juice (we have cut back on, but not eliminated, those square cartons  -- which, I recently read, are the WORST offenders), so  ... we have made alot of lemonade.  A perfect alternative, but it ain't fast: squeezing 10 lemons and then making simple syrup to sweeten takes a solid 15 minutes; start doing that every other day or so, and suddenly Vitamin Water starts looking good!

Breakfast ...  requires a fair amount of planning.  We eat alot of fruit, and about once a week I bake a batch or two of muffins.  We make alot of zucchini and banana bread (and sometimes, a weird loaf that combines the two).  There is always yogurt (which we still make weekly, best thing ever) with fruit and granola and honey.  When we run out of granola though, it's a 20-block trip to the health food store; honey, Sundays from the farmer's market. Eventually, the kids are going to crave some Reeses Puffs or Waffle Crisp, and, eventually, we parents will give in to the quick convenience of  breakfast-in-a-box.  Leggo my Eggos!

All in all, this has been a summer of planning and strategizing our meals from a new perspective, beyond just flavor.   And when my grocery basket looks (ideally, not always!) like the one above, compared to the literally piles of plastic containers I see in the baskets around me, it's clear that the effort is worth it.  Articles like today's Times editorial drive the point home:  to avoid plastic garbage becoming an eighth continent, we have to develop new habits and new routines.  Take up the challenge!

Go(a)t Milk?

We were lucky to spend the past weekend on the bucolic eastern shore of Maryland, where we got our fill of fresh green beans and beets and lettuces and blackberries from the garden. But the bigger adventure was buying a huge glass jar of fresh goat milk at Frank's farm on the way home. Frank is actually a full-time roofer, but (this being bucolic) it just happens that he also keeps a whole stable of horses and goats, chickens and rabbits. We made our goat milk into yogurt, which turned out to be very rich and tangy. Topped with cherries, plums and honey, a perfect breakfast. We'll definitely stop at Frank's again!

The end of the Trash-Free month! (or is it?)

Well, we made it through our trash-free June.

It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t always fun. There were some challenging moments.

Daniela hauled a lot of compost from 110^th Street to Union Square. Daisy missed her occasional plastic toy purchase. Charlotte still has nightmares about the homemade toothpaste (“It burns! It burns!”) But we did it, and we did it together.

It felt good to really limit the amount of garbage we put into the system.

It was nice to buy most of our food at the Farmer’s market, and make our own yogurt, cheese and bread.

Our hats off to three girls for going along with the whole idea, and for making the critical discovery that Edy's ice cream is plastic-free.

So the big news (to us anyway) is that it’ll be a trash-free summer!

This idea was not met with universal cheers at home. In the interest of family harmony, we may ease the rules occasionally. But the girls understand that the whole point of this exercise was to increase our awareness and understanding of this disposable society, and to change what we can, even if it’s just the five of us.

It's Getting Dicey

One by one, the products we absolutely take for granted are running out during the course of this month.  Here's how we are getting around some of those things, plastic-free.

• Hair Conditioner:  no more bottles of Herbal Essence for this gang!  We went to Lush, the British store that sells handmade bath and beauty products in solid form -- and bought a half-pound slice of Jungle Conditioner, sold just like cheese!  So if you detect a sweet odor of figs, passion fruit and bananas coming from Steve, it's his hair.  Pretty soon we will be going back for shampoo too.

• Dish Soap:  just last week we ran out of that bright orange Palmolive, that is so handy to pour into the pump next to the sink.  Turns out that way back under the sink we had a bottle of Shaklee Basic cleaner, which is great and organic, but less user-friendly:  add one teaspoon to a gallon of water to do your dishes.   We opted to add a few drops to a squeeze bottle filled with water, and now mix up a new batch every few days.  When we are out of this stuff, will have to come up with a new recipe.

• Toothpaste:  yikes!  Five people use alot of toothpaste, and we are about to run out.  If you google "making toothpaste" you'll discover that a lot of people make their own!  I printed out the wikipedia version and left it on the kitchen table -- it was met with alot of skepticism!  But this family is game to try anything once.  Mostly it's baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, which we have, and some mint oil, which we need.   Hopefully there's another squeeze bottle somewhere in the house.